Category Archives: Recommendations

I thought it had only been a few weeks, but it’s actually several months since I last posted an entry in my ‘Post-Apocalyptic Movie Club’. For those who don’t know what I’m talking about, it’s an (increasingly) irregular look at some of the post-apocalyptic movies I’ve seen, particularly those which have gone on to have an impact on my work. You can read previous entries here. No in-depth analysis or anything heavy here, just a recommendation or two.

Today I’m writing about Peter Watkins’ The War Game, a BBC drama made in 1965, but not shown until twenty years later, despite winning the Best Documentary Oscar in 1967.

The War Game depicts the build up, impact and after-effects of a global nuclear conflict, concentrating particularly on the people of Rochester, Kent, who are hit by an off-strike weapon originally aimed at Gatwick airport.

The film was commissioned by the BBC as part of a weekly drama series, but was withdrawn from transmission as it was adjudged to be “too horrifying for the medium of broadcasting”. I watched the film again several weeks back, and despite its age and having seen it several times before, it still shook me with its power. It’s little wonder that it wasn’t shown on British television until 1985. I can only imagine what audiences in the 1960’s would have made of it.

Remember those ‘choose your own adventure’ books which used to be hugely popular? Many a wasted hour was spent back in the day, working my way through the stories… getting killed, going back a few pages, taking another option until I’d finally been through all the alternatives and fought my way to the finish. It seems the popularity of these books declined proportionally alongside the rise of the Internet, and they do feel dated now, but they’re still a lot of fun.

Now someone’s had the bright idea of setting a choose your own adventure book in the world of the zombie apocalypse, and that someone is Max Brallier. Max, coincidentally, works for Thomas Dunne Books (my US publisher), and my editor, Brendan Deneen, hooked us up just before Max’s book – the superbly titled Can You Survive the Zombie Apocalypse? – was released. I approached reading it with trepidation, knowing that ideas like this usually only go one of two ways: they’re either superb or awful. Fortunately for all concerned, this book is a blast.

Once you start reading CYStZA?, you’ll be hooked. Max has crowbarred in a huge number of zombie scenarios – some cliched, some hilarious, some downright bizarre – and there are a vast number of wildly different potential outcomes. I mentioned working my way backwards through ‘choose your own adventure’ books when I was younger. With this book I found myself ferociously flicking back and forth through the pages, not wanting to miss anything. From gangsters to baseball, zoos to sewers, George Lucas to George Romero, CYStZA has pretty much everything you could imagine coming across in Manhattan when the dead rise.

I took the opportunity to ask Max about the book, and also about his bizarre novella VATICAN ASSASSIN WARLOCK – co-written with Brendan and inspired by the recent exploits of Charlie Sheen…

I feel particularly bad about this, but it’s illustrative of how busy the last year has been: this post is horrendously overdue. I met Remy Porter back in March 2010 and I was sent a copy of DEAD BEAT in June last year. I promised to give the book some exposure here but, unfortunately, it took me until this January to get to read it, and another few months have now passed before I’ve finally been able to sit down and write this. Apologies to Remy for the delay!

By now I guess many visitors to this site will have already read DEAD BEAT or at least will have heard something about it. I hope Remy won’t mind me describing it as a ‘typical’ zombie novel to an extent. It has pretty much everything you would expect: a mysterious outbreak, a flawed hero with a beautiful girlfriend, a no-good waster who smartens up and proves himself when the sh*t hits the fan, a family of foul villains who’s depravity knows no bounds, and as much blood, gore and zombie action as you could want. Set in a quiet, rural area, the distinctly British tone and atmosphere makes a refreshing change from many other stories in the genre today.

I’ve not been able to post here much lately, but I’ll be back next week with plenty of Autumn: The City related stuff. In the meantime, here’s another entry in the Post-Apocalyptic Movie Club.

In May 1980 the British government distributed a leaflet called ‘Protect and Survive’ to all homes in the UK. It (along with a series of public information films like the one embedded below) was designed to provide homeowners with practical advice on how to protect themselves in the event of a nuclear attack. The original intention was to have them distributed only in time of a national emergency, but the media interest and ensuing public debate was such that they were given a general release. Fat lot of good they’d have done if the shit really had hit the fan! Shoving a few doors against a wall and covering them in mattresses and cushions might have offered some protection from the initial blast, but such a shelter, like the government publications themselves, would have done little to help the post-attack population cope with fallout, hunger, fear, desperation, cold, devastating injuries, lawlessness, etc. etc. etc.

Several months late, but here’s the second in my series of looks at classic (and not so classic) post-apocalyptic movies.

Picture the scene: late-1983 – a very different, pre-Internet world where news comes almost entirely from the daily papers and scheduled radio and TV bulletins, where information isn’t available ‘on tap’ like it is today. It’s a world which feels like it’s permanently on the edge; split into east and west by two opposing superpowers with their respective leaders’ fingers hovering over the buttons which, it seems, will inevitably release a nuclear Armageddon sometime very soon. In school playgrounds, kids talk nervously about things like Mutual Assured Destruction and what they’re going to do when the four-minute warning sounds. There’s an uneasy feeling of impending doom, and the lack of readily available information makes the playground chatter that much more frightening… ‘your eyes melt if you look at one of them exploding’, ‘they’ll aim at least three at our city, we won’t have a chance’, ‘I heard Dad talking to one of his mates about the missiles at Greenham Common’…

As a writer, I’m regularly approached by people who want to tell me about the incredible new book they’ve just written. I try to be accommodating and look at as many manuscripts as I can, and I’m always happy to share my experiences of publishing with anyone who asks. You’ll probably appreciate though, it takes time to read a book properly and provide the author with constructive, useful feedback, and that’s part of the reason a). why I’ve got a backlog of such books right now (apologies to all who’ve sent books to me in 2010 – I will get back to you), and b). why I’ve had to start saying no to new approaches. Please don’t contact me for blurbs etc. until I post something to the contrary here: it’s not that I don’t want to help, I just can’t right now…

Another problem with agreeing to read books like this, is that you never know what you’re going to get. I’ve had long and involved conversations with writers about their fantastic sounding ideas, only to eventually receive an incoherent, uncorrected mess of a manuscript. However, that’s the exception, and I’ve read some truly great books from people who’ve started out as either readers, friends or both.

Today – very belatedly (sincere apologies, Craig) – I want to tell you about one of the best books I’ve read in a long time. If you’re a lover of zombie fiction in any way, shape or form, I urge you to pick up Tooth and Nail by Craig DiLouie.

On the face of it, Tooth and Nail looks like any one of a hundred other zombie stories. The plot sounds standard, almost clichéd: a mutated form of the rabies virus is causing chaos around the world, and a battle-hardened Lieutenant must lead his men (recently back from Iraq) across New York to protect a research facility which may just hold the cure…

Right; forget all your preconceptions. Tooth and Nailis about all of that, but it’s so much more too.

This is the first film in my ‘Post-Apocalyptic Movie Club’ – a series of regular features, essays and discussions about films which depict the end of the world in one way or another. I know it’s not right, but I’m addicted to this stuff! Please check out the movie, read my thoughts, then join me to talk about it in the forum or on Facebook, Twitter etc.

Threads, a BBC TV production, was first broadcast in September 1984 and subsequently repeated the following August to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It wasn’t shown again on UK TV until 2003 and despite owning a VHS copy since the early 1990’s, it had been more than 15 years since I’d watched the film when I sat down to watch it again recently. Looking back, I think I may have set the bar too high by selecting Threads as my first film for discussion. I’ve yet to find a more harrowing or thought-provoking PA movie.